Government Operations Committee on May 3rd, 2021

[Lorenzo Ieraci]

Mr. Chair, that is something we need to look at. There isn't a unanimous view on how we should go about doing these things, and I have a few things to say here.

First, as I mentioned, the policy is what will give us authority to do social procurement and collect data. The second thing we need to do is develop a program to operationalize social procurement, because procurement officers are going to have a lot of questions: When should they should apply social procurement and for what commodities? Is it for all or none? Which socio-economic groups do they focus on?

To answer the question a bit more directly, there are numerous groups and organizations that provide various services, including, for example, definitions, certifications and providing access to databases. We're looking at that as part of the development of procurement.

On the indigenous side, we've been told quite clearly—and I think we agree with it—that defining an indigenous business or company and having databases as to which companies are certified to be indigenous should rest with indigenous groups and organizations. By and large, it's the same thing for other groups or organizations. I don't know that we would necessarily want procurement officers to make determinations as to the legitimacy of an under-represented group or company.

These are some of the things we're going to be exploring as we go forward to develop a program to implement this. As part of that, we really want to make sure to benefit from the views of organizations and associations in the under-represented communities to inform our way forward.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That's great. Thank you.

I probably have just 30 seconds.

Are you or OSME going to identify areas where perhaps one under-represented group needs capacity building? It can be just a matter of informing under-represented groups about what you buy or what you need services for. Are you aware of this?

[Lorenzo Ieraci]

I'll turn to my colleague Clinton to give him the opportunity to speak a bit about the office of small and medium enterprises and what its doing.

[Clinton Lawrence-Whyte]

Mr. Chair, I fully agree that engagement with some of these disadvantaged groups is critically important. As we saw during the Black pilots that were recently referenced, engagements and conversations around what OSME has to offer and how to understand procurements are critically important.

One thing we're certainly doing through our regional offices.... I acknowledge the shout-out from member of Parliament McCauley. Thanks again. Our teams in the regions are actively engaged in working with communities to make sure that their individuals are fully aware. As an example, we had an event in Ottawa on April 14 and 15 called the Small Business Information Expo. We collaborated with ISED. They had some of their programming available, as well as some private sector—

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you. I was wondering, Mr. Lawrence-Whyte, if you could put your microphone a bit closer, for the interpretation.

[Clinton Lawrence-Whyte]

Oh, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I apologize. I was looking around to see if there were any issues.

We have to carry on, but next time you get a chance to answer, make sure that you have the mike in front of you. I'd greatly appreciate it.

[Clinton Lawrence-Whyte]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

We'll now go to Ms. Vignola.

You have two and a half minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Ieraci, in general, what type of contracts are awarded to businesses owned by members of first nations or a visible minority group? Are these contracts for services, construction, procurement of goods and supplies, and so on?

[Lorenzo Ieraci]

Thank you for the question.

It's difficult to give you a specific answer. With respect to indigenous businesses, we found that contracts were awarded in almost every area, including computers, the provision of goods or various types of services. The same applies to businesses known to be owned by women. Studies conducted by several universities show that there are women-owned businesses in almost every industry sector.

Furthermore, studies conducted by first nations groups show that there are over 50,000 indigenous businesses in Canada and that these businesses are found in all areas and environments, with very few exceptions.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

The evidence shows that the pandemic has been particularly hard on businesses owned by members of first nations or visible minority groups.

How can this be explained?

What steps is PSPC taking to address this?

[Lorenzo Ieraci]

Thank you for the question.

The information on how the pandemic has affected different communities comes from either Statistics Canada or Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, I believe, which used to be called Industry Canada.

In terms of our efforts, we launched pilot projects with Black Canadian businesses. We also specifically and exclusively awarded contracts to indigenous businesses that were producing different types of masks so that we could respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through these activities, we received many bids from businesses and we were able to award contracts to indigenous businesses.

As I said, we certainly still have a great deal of work to do in this area. However, we're working on our policy and our electronic system, which will help us make things better.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I assume that the upcoming data collection will also allow for—

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Mr. Green for two and a half minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I want to reference again some of the failures in which other programs have been able to identify exactly what is diverse, how they are able to audit, and who is doing that. I'll reference Employment and Social Development Canada's failed rollout for local, small, Black-led organizations, many of which, including some in Hamilton Centre, were not defined as being—quote, unquote—“Black enough” for this.

My concern is that with the potential for a $100-billion COVID recovery plan, what can the assistant deputy minister provide the committee today by way of an assurance that there will actually be programs beyond the initiatives such as consultations and pilot programs to ensure that, out of the $100-billion COVID recovery, equity-seeking groups are adequately accounted for and included in this economic recovery plan?

[Lorenzo Ieraci]

Mr. Chair, obviously, I can't speak on behalf of other federal departments and agencies in their rollout of their programs and activities. From a procurement perspective, as I indicated, in addition to the policy and the electronic procurement solution that we're putting in place, we will be developing a program to be able to operationalize these activities so we can identify and ensure that, when it comes to procurement, we have under-represented groups that are not only going to be participating, but hopefully....

The goal is to be able to ensure they are winning contracts when it comes to federal procurement. I mentioned the Black Canadian procurement pilot. We also undertook two years of socio-economic experimentation where we sought to diversify our supplier base through a number of procurement activities.

Those are some of the things we're doing to be able to see what will work.

The last point I would make is with regard to questions about whether companies are appropriate for whatever category or group we might be looking for in terms of the procurement. That's also the reason we want to speak with external organizations in terms of their approaches for defining, certifying and establishing databases so we are not asking procurement officers to make those decisions.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

We'll now go to Mr. McCauley for five minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's great.

Mr. Ieraci, who is determining what we are talking about today as under-represented? We have indigenous women and we talked about the Black pilot, but in the broader scope, how are we determining what group is under-represented? Going forward, how is our policy looking at that?

[Lorenzo Ieraci]

Mr. Chair, right now, under-represented groups is intentionally a very broad category. I would differentiate between two groups out of respect. One is indigenous, because of the nation-to-nation relationship we have with them. The other is what I will hopefully not get myself in trouble for, but other under-represented groups would include numerous groups. It's not just Black Canadian businesses. It's other visible minorities, those with accessibility challenges, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and so on.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Are we going to be setting specific goals for the general under-represented? I understand your difficulty defining that, and I'm fine with that, but in the departmental plan we have something for women and indigenous. How are we planning for some of the other groups that might be under-represented: handicapped, Indo-Canadian and other demographics?

[Lorenzo Ieraci]

Mr. Chair, that is a really good question for which I don't have a very good answer. It is one of the things we're looking at—how many different groups. Within groups, of course recognizing that groups can be subdivided a little further, there are always additional levels of granularity.

Our policy basically leaves under-represented groups at a fairly high relatively macro level, so if there's a desire to be able to look at different groups or subgroups, the policy won't be an impediment or a barrier to us.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Who would decide that? I know what you mean by subgroups, but who would decide those demographics? Would it be the department making that decision, or the government itself deciding?